Friday, February 18, 2011

The Story Behind Charlie Brown Being Taken

We received a detailed run down of what went down with Banksy's Charlie Brown. Apparently, it was almost painted over before being chopped out. Click the jump below for more actions shots and to read the full story about what went down at the Charlie Brown removal.We received the pictures and description from the followers of MELROSEandFAIRFAX. Big thanks to all the supporters of MELROSEandFAIRFAX who have been our eyes and ears all over the city. We couldn't do it without you. Special thanks to Cindy Bolf for the rundown and Layla Halfhill for the action pictures.Cindy contacted us with the following description.

I have been watching your site to get all the up-to-date stories on the Banksy pieces showing up all over LA. You have been doing a great job!

I am writing to give some back story on the Charlie Brown piece. After I saw on your website that it was uncovered, I was so excited that I headed over to the location to get a look at it. I got there at around 4 in the afternoon. There were people there, taking pictures of it and there were 2 dudes. One of them you have pictured in the red hoodie. The other guy that was with him said that they uncovered the Charlie Brown and were going to paint over it. I asked why and if he knew what this was. He said he had no idea what the picture was and what it meant but he had orders from his boss. His boss owned the property and when his boss found out that someone else came to the property and drilled holes in the wall and there was plans for someone else to cut out the wall, they freaked and decided that painting over the Charlie Brown would prevent further vandalism to the building. This guy and red hoodie guy were working with property management.

Many people that came to see the piece pleaded with this guy to not paint over it and told him that it was worth a lot of money, probably even worth more than the charred building that it was on. Well, he and the dude in the red hoodie starting making some phone calls to their boss when they found out that it was worth a lot of money. To further add to the drama, there was a group of 3 guys, one who said he flew in from NY yesterday, was calling his boss to put an offer in on the building to save the Charlie Brown or to maybe cut it out themselves once the building was theirs.

Well, the actual owner of the building put a hold on painting over the Charlie Brown and instead decided that since he owned the building, he was going to order property management to cut out the Charlie Brown instead of painting over it. They boarded it up and said that they are going to wait until people leave to start cutting it out. Then they starting talking about what tools they will use to get it out of there.

Either way, the whole situation is a shame but ultimately, the Charlie Brown wasn't painted over and it is safe somewhere so it saw the better of two lesser ends. I feel that if no one came along with the intention of stealing it, this piece might still be here for everyone to enjoy.